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JOSEPH
SHERIDAN LE FANU
THE EVIL GUEST
Москва, 2019
УДК 82
ББК 84(0)
J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Evil Guest / J. Sh. Le Fanu. – М.: T8RUGRAM / Original,
2019. – 172 с. – (Top 100 Classic Books)
ISBN 978-5-517-00231-0
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of
Gothic novels, one of the most infl uential ghost story writers of
the nineteenth century. Filled with mystery, “The Evil Guest”
is a murder story set in Victorian era England. It tells a story
of Richard Marston, who lives in poverty with his family. His
house slowly decays, and moral principles fade away. This decline reaches its critical point when inhabitants of the mansion
fi nd Marston’s rich cousin dead in one of the rooms. But who
committed the murder?
УДК 82
ББК 84(0)
BIC FC
BISAC FIC004000
© T8RUGRAM, оформление, 2019
ISBN 978-5-517-00231-0 © Original, 2019
“When Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin: and Sin, when
it is fi nished, bringeth forth Death”
About sixty years ago, and somewhat more than twenty
miles from the ancient town of Chester, in a southward direction, there stood a large, and, even then, an old-fashioned
mansion-house. It lay in the midst of a demesne of considerable extent, and richly wooded with venerable timber; but,
apart from the somber majesty of these giant groups, and
the varieties of the undulating ground on which they stood,
there was little that could be deemed attractive in the place.
A certain air of neglect and decay, and an indescribable
gloom and melancholy, hung over it. In darkness, it seemed
darker than any other tract; when the moonlight fell upon
its glades and hollows, they looked spectral and awful, with
a sort of churchyard loneliness; and even when the blush of
the morning kissed its broad woodlands, there was a melancholy in the salute that saddened rather than cheered the
heart of the beholder.
This antique, melancholy, and neglected place, we shall
call, for distinctness sake, Gray Forest. It was then the property
of the younger son of a nobleman, once celebrated for his ability and his daring, but who had long since passed to that land
where human wisdom and courage avail naught. The representative of this noble house resided at the family mansion in
Sussex, and the cadet, whose fortunes we mean to sketch in
these pages, lived upon the narrow margin of an encumbered
income, in a reserved and unsocial discontent, deep among the
solemn shadows of the old woods of Gray Forest.
5
JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU
The Hon. Richard Marston was now somewhere between
forty and fi fty years of age – perhaps nearer the latter; he still,
however, retained, in an eminent degree, the traits of manly
beauty, not the less remarkable for its unquestionably haughty and passionate character. He had married a beautiful girl,
of good family, but without much money, somewhere about
eighteen years before; and two children, a son and a daughter,
had been the fruit of this union. The boy, Harry Marston, was
at this time at Cambridge; and his sister, scarcely fi fteen, was
at home with her parents, and under the training of an accomplished governess, who had been recommended to them
by a noble relative of Mrs. Marston. She was a native of France,
but thoroughly mistress of the English language, and, except
for a foreign accent, which gave a certain prettiness to all she
said, she spoke it as perfectly as any native Englishwoman.
This young Frenchwoman was eminently handsome and attractive. Expressive, dark eyes, a clear olive complexion, small
even teeth, and a beautifully-dimpling smile, more perhaps
than a strictly classic regularity of features, were the secrets of
her unquestionable infl uence, at fi rst sight, upon the fancy of
every man of taste who beheld her.
Mr. Marston’s fortune, never very large, had been shattered by early dissipation. Naturally of a proud and somewhat
exacting temper, he actively felt the mortifying consequences
of his poverty. The want of what he felt ought to have been
his position and infl uence in the county in which he resided,
fretted and galled him; and he cherished a resentful and bitter sense of every slight, imaginary or real, to which the same
fruitful source of annoyance and humiliation had exposed
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THE EVIL GUEST
him. He held, therefore, but little intercourse with the surrounding gentry, and that little not of the pleasantest possible
kind; for, not being himself in a condition to entertain, in that
style which accorded with his own ideas of his station, he declined, as far as was compatible with good breeding, all the
proffered hospitalities of the neighborhood; and, from his wild
and neglected park, looked out upon the surrounding world
in a spirit of moroseness and defi ance, very unlike, indeed, to
that of neighborly good-will.
In the midst, however, of many of the annoyances attendant upon crippled means, he enjoyed a few of those shadowy
indications of hereditary importance, which are all the more
dearly prized, as the substantial accessories of wealth have
disappeared. The mansion in which he dwelt was, though
old-fashioned, imposing in its aspect, and upon a scale unequivocally aristocratic; its walls were hung with ancestral
portraits, and he managed to maintain about him a large and
tolerably respectable staff of servants. In addition to these, he
had his extensive demesne, his deer-park, and his unrivalled
timber, wherewith to console himself; and, in the consciousness of these possessions, he found some imperfect assuagement of those bitter feelings of suppressed scorn and resentment, which a sense of lost station and slighted importance
engendered. Mr. Marston’s early habits had, unhappily, been
of a kind to aggravate, rather than alleviate, the annoyances
incidental to reduced means. He had been a gay man, a voluptuary, and a gambler. His vicious tastes had survived the means
of their gratifi cation. His love for his wife had been nothing
more than one of those vehement and headstrong fancies,
7
JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU
which, in self-indulgent men, sometimes result in marriage,
and which seldom outlive the fi rst few months of that life-long
connection. Mrs. Marston was a gentle, noble-minded woman.
After agonies or disappointment, which none ever suspected,
she had at length learned to submit, in sad and gentle acquiescence, to her fate. Those feelings, which had been the charm of
her young days, were gone, and, as she bitterly felt, forever. For
them there was no recall they could not return; and, without
complaint or reproach, she yielded to what she felt was inevitable. It was impossible to look at Mrs. Marston, and not to discern, at a glance, the ruin of a surpassingly beautiful woman;
a good deal wasted, pale, and chastened with a deep, untold
sorrow, but still possessing the outlines, both in face and form,
of that noble beauty and matchless grace, which had made her,
in happier days, the admired of all observers. But equally impossible was it to converse with her, for even a minute, without hearing, in the gentle and melancholy music of her voice,
the sad echoes of those griefs to which her early beauty had
been sacrifi ced, an undying sense of lost love, and happiness
departed, never to come again.
One morning, Mr. Marston had walked, as was his custom
when he expected the messenger who brought from the neighboring post offi ce his letters, some way down the broad, straight
avenue, with its double rows of lofty trees at each side, when
he encountered the nimble emissary on his return. He took
the letter-bag in silence. It contained but two letters – one addressed to “Mademoiselle de Barras, chez M. Marston,” and the
other to himself. He took them both, dismissed the messenger,
8
THE EVIL GUEST
and opening that addressed to himself, read as follows, while
he slowly retraced his steps towards the house: –
Dear Richard,
I am a whimsical fellow, as you doubtless remember, and have
lately grown, they tell me, rather hippish besides. I do not know
to which infi rmity I am to attribute a sudden fancy that urges me
to pay you a visit, if you will admit me. To say truth, my dear Dick,
I wish to see a little of your part of the world, and, I will confess it, en
passant, to see a little of you too. I really wish to make acquaintance
with your family; and though they tell me my health is very much
shaken, I must say, in self-defense, I am not a troublesome inmate.
I can perfectly take care of myself, and need no nursing or caudling
whatever. Will you present this, my petition, to Mrs. Marston, and
report her decision thereon to me. Seriously, I know that your house
may be full, or some other contretemps may make it impracticable
for me just now to invade you. If it be so, tell me, my dear Richard,
frankly, as my movements are perfectly free, and my time all my
own, so that I can arrange my visit to suit your convenience.
– Yours, &c.,
WYNSTON E. BERKLEY
P.S. – Direct to me at – Hotel, in Chester, as I shall probably be
there by the time this reaches you.
“Ill-bred and pushing as ever,” quoth Mr. Marston, angrily,
as he thrust the unwelcome letter into his pocket. “This fellow, wallowing in wealth, without one nearer relative on earth
than I, and associated more nearly still with me the – pshaw!
not affection – the recollections of early and intimate companionship, leaves me unaided, for years of desertion and suffering, to the buffetings of the world, and the troubles or all but
9
JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU
overwhelming pecuniary diffi culties, and now, with the cool
confi dence of one entitled to respect and welcome, invites himself to my house. Coming here,” he continued, after a gloomy
pause, and still pacing slowly towards the house, “to collect
amusing materials for next season’s gossip-stories about the
married Benedick – the bankrupt beau – the outcast tenant
of a Cheshire wilderness”; and, as he said this, he looked at the
neglected prospect before him with an eye almost of hatred.
“Aye, to see the nakedness of the land is he coming, but he shall
be disappointed. His money may buy him a cordial welcome at
an inn, but curse me if it shall purchase him a reception here.”
He again opened and glanced through the letter.
“Aye, purposely put in such a way that I can’t decline it
without affronting him,” he continued doggedly. “Well, then,
he has no one to blame but himself – affronted he shall be;
I shall effectually put an end to this humorous excursion. Egad,
it is rather hard if a man cannot keep his poverty to himself.”
Sir Wynston Berkley was a baronet of large fortune – a selfish, fashionable man, and an inveterate bachelor. He and Marston had been schoolfellows, and the violent and implacable
temper of the latter had as little impressed his companion
with feelings of regard, as the frivolity and selfi shness of the
baronet had won the esteem of his relative. As boys, they had
little in common upon which to rest the basis of a friendship,
or even a mutual liking. Berkley was gay, cold, and satirical;
his cousin – for cousins they were – was jealous, haughty, and
relentless. Their negative disinclination to one another’s society, not unnaturally engendered by uncongenial and unamiable dispositions, had for a time given place to actual hostility,
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